August 11, 2009

Oafs of Office

WASHINGTON (The Dissociated Press) - New York Federal Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday, prompting the Anti-Defamation League to brand her an anti-Semite and call for her immediate impeachment.

Sotomayor was confirmed by a 68 - 31 vote in the Senate, overcoming opposition from several prominent Republicans, like former presidential candidate John "Bomb-Bomb-Bomb Bomb-Bomb-Iran" McCain of Arizona, who claimed she lacked the "judicial temperament" to sit on the highest bench in the land.

A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, Sotomayor, 55, is the first Hispanic to sit on, or be nominated to the Supreme Court. She grew up in the New York borough of the Bronx, where she was born after her parents resettled there from their native Puerto Rico.

Some of her supporters worried that Judge Sotomayor's nomination might be derailed, not by her 18 years' worth of decisions from the federal bench, but by some of her "less conventional" speeches and writings delivered away from the court. For example, in one speech, delivered in 1994 to a group of minority students at Duke Law School, Sotomayor said that, under some circumstances, she felt it could be "advantageous to fuck up a white male judge if he was having trouble getting past his 'My people came over on the Mayflower, so I own this place' bullshit!"

Despite Republican efforts to provoke her and trip her up, however, Sottomayor remained demure and focused during her senate confirmation hearings. At one point, while being grilled by the ranking Judiciary Committee member, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, over her views on the 2nd Amendment "right to bear arms," the judge got up from her chair and began singing the song "I Feel Pretty" from the musical "West Side Story."

Judge, now Justice, Sottomayor was sworn in on Saturday by Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. The historic ceremony had to be carried out twice after, on his first attempt, Justice Roberts accidentally administered the oath of office for vice president of Bolivia.